[ad_1]
Hong Kong’s FactWire, an unbiased investigative information company, has grow to be the fourth main information outlet within the territory to shut inside lower than a yr. FactWire succumbed to what it described because the “nice change” in Hong Kong’s media atmosphere for the reason that imposition of the Nationwide Safety Legislation, which has considerably dismantled the town’s unbiased media and civil society. With a shrinking area for journalism in each Hong Kong and mainland China, officers are celebrating a brand new period of “patriotic media” more and more beneath authorities management. Bidding its readers farewell, FactWire launched an announcement asserting the termination of its operations:
For the previous six years, we have now performed our greatest to maintain this publicly-funded investigative information company afloat in Hong Kong, while adhering to the best requirements of journalistic integrity. By the ups and downs, we have now at all times stored our mission – and our rules – close to and expensive to our hearts.
[…] Lately, the media has contended with nice change. Regardless of having wrestled many instances with the troublesome choice as as to whether to proceed our journalistic work, we had at all times come to the identical affirmative conclusion: to face quick to our core values and beliefs, and to at all times report the information.
However to each factor there’s a season, and a time to each goal. It has, ultimately, come time to finish our journey. [Source]
To each factor there’s a season, and a time to each goal. It has, ultimately, come time to finish our journey.
FactWire will stop operation as of at present, Friday, June 10, 2022. Thanks in your assist.
Full assertion: https://t.co/ocYWnTZwOa pic.twitter.com/sp8C2kVYT6
— FactWire 傳真社 (@factwirenews) June 10, 2022
FactWire was established in 2015 as a non-profit, public service information company financed fully by public subscriptions and media licensing from readers. At its inception, it raised HK$4.7 million ($600,000 U.S. {dollars}) in crowdfunding from over 3,300 backers. Identified for its hard-hitting investigations, FactWire labeled itself because the “first and solely unbiased newsroom that specialises in investigative journalism in Hong Kong.” Its founder, veteran journalist Ng Hiu-tung, summarized the company’s ethos in a BBC profile from 2017: “You possibly can’t cover the reality, even when it hurts.”
Tributes to FactWire have been shared on Twitter following the information of its closure:
Truth Wire’s investigative journalism has been strong & they gonna be missed.
One instance… discovering video of Police not stopping & checking “potential” perpetrators of seven.21 in any respect and simply letting them depart the world. https://t.co/Z34Zs30K6K— Xun-ling Au 歐迅灵 🏴 (@XunlingAu) June 10, 2022
I keep in mind my highschool civics instructor bolded and underlined FactWire on our notes as a result of it was a landmark second for Hong Kong to lastly have a crowdfunded nonprofit, bilingual investigative information company. It was eye-opening.
I suppose my instructor has to replace her notes now. https://t.co/MBsAQs7l9Y
— Alex Ip 葉清霖 (@AlexIp718) June 10, 2022
FactWire has performed some wonderful investigative journalism over time, at all times reporting what HongKongers are involved about, even very not too long ago:https://t.co/OApRKW5f8l
— Combat For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong. 重光團隊 (@Stand_with_HK) June 10, 2022
As FactWire closes, another retailers are hoping to fill the hole, however Hong Kong’s inhospitable media panorama makes their survival unsure:
If you’re a present FactWire subscriber on the lookout for one other research-centered group to assist. I extremely suggest @LiberResearch, which focuses on land, growth, and environmental insurance policies. Their deep dive reviews are principally in Chinese language, however their knowledge is a treasure trove. pic.twitter.com/OsvQAXPZyS
— Ok Tse (@ktse852) June 10, 2022
And on the identical day, a brand new outlet emerges. Wave, a zine shaped by two veteran tradition reporters, will concentrate on #HongKong popular culture. pic.twitter.com/KObYMKw37q
— Rachel Cheung (@rachel_cheung1) June 10, 2022
The precise motive for FactWire’s shuttering is unclear, however many observers noted the political context. In mid-April, the company launched an investigation into incoming Chief Govt John Lee’s enterprise connections with members of the Chief Govt Election Committee. Then, on Might 3, FactWire revealed an investigation revealing that the federal government’s LeaveHomeSafe COVID-19 app had a beforehand undisclosed facial-recognition function. The subsequent day, FactWire reported that it had suffered a cyberattack, originating from a Hong-Kong-based IP deal with and involving unauthorized entry to data on 3,700 of the company’s subscribers. Hillary Leung from the Hong Kong Free Press recounted a few of FactWire’s different main investigations and awards:
Earlier this yr, a FactWire investigation discovered that there have been plenty of CCTV cameras within the neighborhood of a Wan Chai restaurant the place high political officers held a birthday celebration that violated Covid-19 guidelines.
It has additionally damaged tales about security considerations at a mainland Chinese language nuclear energy plant and the persecution of late Nobel prize winner Liu Xiaobo, based on its web site.
Their work obtained plenty of awards. Its reporting on the clashes between police and protesters at Prince Edward MTR station on August 31, 2019, throughout the anti-extradition unrest that summer season, received accolades from the Human Rights Press Awards and the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) in 2020.
Its report on pretend information throughout the 2019 protests was additionally a finalist for the SOPA’s public service journalism class within the following yr. [Source]
Extra broadly, FactWire has disbanded amid a years-long authorities crackdown on the town’s media, abetted by harsh utility of the Nationwide Safety Legislation, that reveals no indicators of abating. In Reporters With out Borders’ annual Press Freedom Index, launched final month, Hong Kong dropped from eightieth to 148th place amongst 180 nations, the steepest decline within the index’s historical past. FactWire joins three different Hong Kong-based information retailers which have closed throughout the previous yr: Apple Each day, Stand Information, and Citizen Information. In an interview with CNBC on the day FactWire closed, Carrie Lam nonetheless argued that “Hong Kong is as free as ever, whether or not it’s within the freedom of expression, within the freedom of meeting, within the media, and so forth.” Reporting on the town’s media local weather after FactWire’s closure, Tommy Walker at Voice of America described how journalists in Hong Kong have gotten an “endangered species”:
“The working atmosphere in Hong Kong is getting extra annoying due to the pink traces and the exterior strain placed on journalists, who typically grow to be targets of propaganda,” [an anonymous Hong-Kong-based journalist] advised VOA.
[…] “Now I believe I’m working nearly in the identical means as international journalists working within the mainland (China). It’s not that points are legally delicate, however they’re politically delicate, and it’s a must to contemplate the political atmosphere when reporting,” [another anonymous Hong-Kong-based journalist] advised VOA. “I believe there’s positively a tradition of worry within the metropolis, psychologically and generally editorially that impacts us as journalists.”
[…] “A couple of years in the past, it was completely fantastic to be a journalist in Hong Kong,” Tsui stated. However at present, journalists are like “the animals it’s a must to defend when they will go extinct. They’re [the] endangered species in Hong Kong,” [said Lokman Tsui, a former media professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong]. [Source]
On Monday, Hong Kong officers hosted a celebration for the one hundred and twentieth anniversary of the pro-Beijing Ta Kung Pao newspaper. In a letter to the newspaper learn aloud on the ceremony, President Xi Jinping praised Ta Kung Pao for “repeatedly demonstrating optimistic voices and fostering society’s cohesiveness […,] safeguarding Hong Kong’s stability, selling exchanges between Hong Kong and the mainland, in addition to fostering the reunification of individuals’s hearts with the nation.” Ng Kang-chung from the South China Morning Put up reported on how different high-profile attendees interpreted the function of Hong Kong media in society:
“These are additionally Xi’s encouragement for all media that love the nation and love Hong Kong,” stated [Luo Huining, director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong]. “In a pluralistic society like Hong Kong, we particularly want media that love the nation and love Hong Kong to uphold the reality and to beat the evil and hail the virtuous. And we want media employees who love the nation and love Hong Kong to carry tight to their mission and shoulder their tasks.”
Additionally talking on the ceremony, Chief Govt-elect John Lee Ka-chiu famous press freedom in Hong Kong was protected by the Fundamental Legislation and loved the identical safeguards as elsewhere on the earth.
“As long as it doesn’t break the legislation, there isn’t any restrict to the room for press freedom. This normal is in keeping with the superior jurisdictions on the earth, together with the West,” Lee stated. “Journalistic work ought to goal to attain professionalism and excellence. It’s not just for its credibility, but additionally it’s to imagine its duty and meet media ethics.”
[…] “Along with persevering with to make good use of press freedom to watch the federal government, the media also needs to safeguard nationwide safety and observe the legislation, and take initiative to advertise nationwide safety, to supply the overall readers and viewers with the right, complete and goal data,” [Chief Executive Carrie] Lam stated. [Source]
The shrinking area for unbiased, non-state-controlled journalism has been documented on the Chinese language mainland, as nicely. As David Bandurski reported on Tuesday for China Media Venture, a latest state media report from the All-China Journalism Affiliation (ACJA) described the steep drop in licensed Chinese language journalists and rising “convergence” of stories beneath authorities authority:
Within the eight years from 2014 to 2021, the full variety of media personnel with legitimate press playing cards (记者证) fell from 258,000 to 194,000, a decline of just below 25 %. This interprets to a complete lack of 64,000 journalists throughout the nation throughout that interval.
[…] One other clear pattern on this yr’s ACJA report, glossed over in official protection of the numbers, is that licensed journalists beneath the age of 30 in China at present quantity simply 14,000 nationwide. That is down from 40,000 eight years in the past, which signifies that one-third as many younger journalists are licensed at present than have been lower than a decade in the past.
[…] One other seemingly motive is the very “convergence” pattern cited extra prominently in official protection of the ACJA report final month. Underneath the centralized mannequin superior by the management, multimedia content material is more and more created not by way of native and regional information retailers, however reasonably by way of “media convergence facilities” (融媒体中心) that package deal materials for a number of platforms. The results of this pattern is prone to be rising centralization of the discharge of stories throughout the nation, with party-state managed facilities producing a better proportion of content material. And centralization means much less demand for the press playing cards required for journalists to have interaction in information gathering. [Source]
[ad_2]
Source link